INTERVIEW: John Densmore on his new book 'The Doors Unhinged'

3 years ago

Founding member of The Doors, drummer John Densmore, released his new book, The Doors Unhinged: Jim Morrison's Legacy Goes On Trial last week. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer sat down with Q104.3's Jim Kerr in New York to discuss the book and talk about The Doors' imprint on rock history.

"The Doors were knocked off their hinges a few years ago for a few years because Ray and Robbie - keyboard and guitar player - thought they could go on without Jim," Densmore tells Jim Kerr. "The Doors without Jim Morrison... The Stones without Mick... The Police without Sting... uh uh. So Jim's estate and I had to enter this legal struggle to straighten that out.

"I tried to write it like my mind was when I was sitting in the courtroom drifting off to thinking about playing with Eddie Vedder, Carlos Santana or whatever was in my mind," Densmore says, adding, " And humor. The older you get the more humor you need."

Check out the full interview with John Densmore and get a sneak peek of the book in an excerpt below.

Check out an excerpt from the book:

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The Good Old DaysCHAPTER ONE

July 6, 2004

It’s early morning and I just parked in the courthouse lot, whereI paid the usual seventeen-dollar parking fee. This charge benignlydrops to a mere six dollars after eleven a.m. but who goes to court aftereleven? It’s not like I can’t afford the tariff. I can. But what about theunfortunate folks who dominate this building in the mornings, with theirwoes of immigration, traffic tickets, and petty crimes? “Let’s rip off thepoor one more time,” must be the motto here.

As I approach the heavy front doors to the ominous Los Angelescourthouse, I’m keenly aware that this is quite a different venue thanI’m used to playing. Compared to the smoky clubs where I spent mylonely youth, this is pretty antiseptic. As a kid, I was hoping that a girlmight notice me behind my gleaming set of drums, but now I don’thave my musical security blanket. It’s just me entering this courthouse,armed with my determination to make right what I believe is a wrong.

I stop for a moment as I pass through the recently installed metaldetectors at the entrance to the courthouse. I get frisked by securityas I gaze down the long marble hallway with the bright neon lighting,winding its way to my new prison cell — I’m referring to courtroomDivision #36. I expect I’ll be here every day for a few weeks. (Notfor the entire summer, as it actually will turn out.) I am plagued bythoughts about how my “integrity” led me to this dire hall of justice.Will I actually wind up with any justice? What am I trying to provehere? Am I committing sabotage against my old bandmates? Thesethoughts won’t stop, like maybe I should be less possessive about ourbrand name. I don’t own it. We all do. We’re all in this together. Is itunfair for one person to try to stop it? Am I the spoiler?

The truth is that a precious pact inked long ago by our front man,Jim, states quite clearly that if things ever get weird, one of us can andshould do something. Well, it got weird and I’m doing something. Butnow that I’ve blown the whistle, I’m in the weirdest place I’ve everbeen. Inside the courtroom, people talk real quiet, calling each other“sir” and “Your Honor,” while they simultaneously and deliberately stabanyone standing in the way of their agenda … in the neck, back, sides,front, toes … anywhere. They’re dressed in their Sunday Best Armanisuits, but they act like they’re in a brothel instead of church. What thehell am I doing here?

I had no idea that when Jim suggested a four-way split on everything,it was a historic moment not to be duplicated by any other band beforeand since. His suggestion was not only magnanimous, but the solidarityturned out to be ironclad. Nothing would crack this fortress. I rest inthe knowledge that I haven’t sabotaged Jim.

In fact, reflecting back all those years to Jim’s violent reaction tothe Buick incident, when Ray, Robby, and I nearly sold “Light MyFire” to Buick for a TV commercial, I feel shame. The Greed Genewas flowing through my veins back then when Jim’s outrageous burstof passion against our selling a song to an ad agency became etchedon my brain, never to be forgotten. For thirty years we were a bandof musicians with one of the most unique four-way agreements ever— nothing could be contracted unless we each gave it the okay. Andnow we are enemy combatants on the fourth floor of the courthouse indowntown Los Angeles.

In a book by James Hillman (Pulitzer nominee, Jungian psychologist,and best-selling author), The Soul’s Code, he states that individuals holdthe potential for their unique possibilities inside themselves already,much as an acorn holds the pattern for an oak tree. I think Jim andlegendary Crazy Horse (Native American war leader of the OglalaLakota) had similar callings — that invisible mystery at the center ofevery life that speaks to the fundamental question, “What is it in myheart, that I must do?” With all the slings and arrows of outrageousfortune that these two endured, they lived out their defining images thatwere in them from the beginning.

I hate all the Morrison fake death rumors, but there is a reason that,like Crazy Horse, the whereabouts of Jim’s remains still evoke mystery.I’m quite sure that Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris is his “happy huntingground,” due to mistaking THE GREAT SPIRIT for the spirit in thebottle, but Jim’s spirit is still so strong, the fans want him alive.

As John Neihardt (Black Elk Speaks) says in his Cycle of the West,the parents of Crazy Horse rode into the Black Hills of South Dakota,carrying their son’s body behind them. His mother wept for the innocenttimes “before the great dream” took her son’s life. No one really knowswhere they stopped as the final resting place for their offspring, but tothe Lakota, the entire area is sacred.

I, too, look back to the sweet, innocent period when we werea garage band, before our “great dream” took us off to the globalstage. But there is very little sacred about this courtroom, which isfilled with people whispering secrets to each other. I’m used to loud,inebriated fans yelling out requests for their favorite song. How didit come to this? While I wait to enter the courtroom, I travel back intime to the beginning …

It was 1965. Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison had met andbecome fast friends while attending film school at UCLA in beautifulWestwood Village in Los Angeles. At that time, people were becominginterested in Eastern philosophy and so my good friend Robby Kriegerand I decided to attend a seminar on Transcendental Meditation (TM)which Ray, whom I hadn’t yet met, also attended. I was obsessedwith music, taking piano lessons at eight years old, playing drumsin the high school marching band, the dance band, and the orchestra.I went to Tijuana and got a fake ID so I could play in bars. . . abudding professional. At the TM meeting, Ray introduced himselfand suggested I come to his parents’ house in Manhattan Beach to jam.I was down, happy to follow any lead to further the high I got fromplaying music. The praise that came from fellow musicians was likea dermatologist’s salve on my acne.

The gathering at Ray’s garage had both a negative and a positive cast.On the down side was the low level of musicianship of Ray’s two brothers… but the guy lurking in the corner of the garage fascinated me. Hisname was Jim Morrison, he looked like a modern version of a Greeksculpture and he moved like one too. In other words, he didn’t moveat all. I stopped staring at him when Manzarek started a nice groove onkeyboards, a blues by Muddy Waters, and I joined in. It must have beentrue that the guy in the corner had never sung before, just like Ray said,because it was a good half hour before he walked up to the mic. At thetime, I didn’t think this guy had the confidence to be the next Mick Jagger,but I just couldn’t stop looking at him … and I wasn’t into guys!

Thankfully, after a couple more rehearsals, the two Manzarek brothersquit, convinced that this band wasn’t going anywhere with a lead singerwho was obviously so uncomfortable performing. I was worried aboutJim’s stage presence, just like they were, but his lyrics were extremelyinteresting to me … and they were percussive! I immediately hearddrumbeats to his words:

You know the day destroys the night,The night divides the day,Tried to run, tried to hide,Break on through to the other side.

It was very risky betting on a singer who had never been in a band,couldn’t play an instrument, and was extremely shy. Something wasmagical about him though … I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

The void created by our lack of a guitar player provided me anopportunity to invite Robby Krieger to audition for the group. Up tothis point he’d primarily been a flamenco guitar player, but he wasstarting to get into playing electric as well. Ray was gregarious andknowledgeable about jazz, which was my passion, but he wasn’t toopassionate about my bringing Robby Krieger in for a rehearsal. Hisreluctance came from the fact that Robby’s persona was not that of thetypical macho rock lead guitarist — strutting the stage, milking thenotes, grabbing the audience. Robby had a much more internal styleand Ray was concerned that two introverts (Jim and Robby) would notmake a rock band. But I pressed for Robby because of his talent. In theend, I was able to convince Ray that what Robby lacked in persona hemade up for in originality. Robby’s musical contribution to this bandwas immense and once he had joined us, The Doors was complete.

As we continued to meet and rehearse, a fascinating thing happened.One day, in a show of extraordinary selflessness, Jim suggested thatall the songs be credited as being written by all of us, even though he,himself, the primary lyricist, was entitled to half of the writing royalties.As a result, no song in our playlist is written solely by Jim Morrison. Nosong is written solely by John Densmore. And no song is written solelyby Robby Krieger or by Ray Manzarek. Jim’s desire to split the potfour equal ways had never been done by a band in the history of popularmusic, from Glenn Miller to The Beatles and up to the present.

Then Jim took it a step further. During a break in a rehearsal, Jimsat up on the edge of the couch and declared, “We should all have vetopower.” That is, if any one of us didn’t like something that was proposed,each man had the right to veto it. That’s the way Jim thought we couldachieve harmony and we all loved the idea, which worked flawlessly —until this current court battle some thirty years later.

In 1967, during the Summer of Love, Elektra Records releasedour first album and “Light My Fire” went straight to the top of thecharts … and stayed there … and stayed there … for an unheard-oftwenty-six weeks. We started touring and recorded a second album,and toured some more, and recorded some more. This was our lifeover the next several years … an incredibly creative period that wasa lot of fun, especially because we were all kindred spirits. But thenJim started to go down.

Besides his encroaching alcoholism, there was another divisiveelement in the air: Vietnam. The folk prophet, Bob Dylan, whistledinto my ears, giving me the courage to get out of the draft, which wasblowing in the wind harder every day:

Temptation’s page flies out the door,You follow, find yourself at warWatch waterfalls of pity roarYou feel to moan but unlike beforeYou discover that you’d be just one morePerson crying.

A napalm storm would reach such a gale force that college kids,married men, and parents with children were forced into a “conflict”we knew was a “terrible wrong,” way before Secretary of DefenseMcNamara would write that phrase in a war memoir. His book exposedthe underpinnings of why I narrowly escaped going down with 60,000of my classmates and ghetto brothers, not to mention a million and ahalf Vietnamese. It was a book written in blood, not ink.

Power-hungry men didn’t understand that the Dylan lyric, Thenew warrior’s strength is not to fight, was heralding the beginning of amovement: Peace. Jim further defined the underpinnings of the time:

There’s blood in the streetsIt’s up to my ankles,Up to my knees,There’s blood in the streets,The town of Chicago,There’s blood on the rise,It’s following me.

The dread was with us 24/7 and we were desperate every day dueto the immoral nature of the enterprise and the growing awareness ofthe American public. The country was divided “for and against,” andwe were against this war in a big way. At the same time, the seedsof the civil rights movement, the peace movement, and the women’smovement were all being planted in the sixties. The Doors were steepedin that kind of stuff, hoping we could sort of level the playing field foreveryone else out there. It may have been a pipe dream, but without adream, one has no sense of direction. We also hoped to make a lot ofdough, but we wanted to do it with a sense of social consciousness.

By the time we had reached “arena” status, which is usually reservedfor sports and not music, we had acquired a couple of managers, SalBonafede and Asher Dann. They were obviously not kindred spirits,however, when they pulled Jim aside one day and said, “Hey, you’re themoney. Let’s get rid of these other guys.”

Businessmen drink my bloodLike the kids in art school said they would.So I’ll just start again.– Arcade Fire

And then a final note of group unity manifested when we were aboutto go onstage and a DJ introduced us to an audience somewhere as “JimMorrison and The Doors.” Our lead singer dragged the DJ back onstageby the ear, refusing to play until he reintroduced us as The Doors.

Those were the good old days. Now, the remaining Doors areready to tear asunder everything we stood for in the beginning. Weused to be a collective body intent on making art, not a bunch ofindividuals mainly out for ourselves or for the money. Perhaps ifJim hadn’t made such a point of us being a “band of brothers,” wewouldn’t be here in this historic courthouse at all. But he did, and itresonates with me still.